mother & scribe

mother & scribe

Pussy Willow

a tree... I was afraid to touch

Triggered by Donald Trump's "And when you're a star [and they're starved], they'll let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy.", PUSSY WILLOW was written after I cooled down with a walk, during which I recalled how, as a girl, I was afraid to touch pussy willow catkins because I might be seen enjoying the sensation. The first that came out of me after hearing the audio recording was, "There's no pussy on a dead planet, Daddy." The anger I experience when triggered is not directed at Donald Trump or my maternal step-grandfather, who molested me at the age of three, or the drunk man in 2014, who could not resist my vulnerability, or other men who behave poorly thus, themselves products of the culture we (they and I and perhaps you) have been raised in. Notice in the audio recording at Fusion, no man stood up for women or for themselves as dignified men.

"Women don’t need protection from men;

women need men to stop being predators,

enablers, and bystanders.

Women are human beings made in the image of God*

regardless of their relationship to a man.

This isn’t a woman’s issue;

it’s a human issue."

Of the online discourse I've caught following the release of Donald Trump's statement, I find Jim Wallis' offering at Sojourners to be morally grounded and strong with conviction. One does not know the full emotional and spiritual consequence of sexual violation unless one has lived the experience. Even if I have suffered similar abuse under similar circumstances, another's actual experience is not mine to know or to judge. Only in a degree of empathy can I relate.

I can say this about my own experience of early childhood sexual violation and parental abandonment, the shame was all-consuming, the self-judgment and insecurity utterly depressing and catastrophic in consequence. In reflection of my own healing process, women and men who are in the midst of spontaneous healing do not need empowerment circles* and life coaches that require financial investment. Rather, they require the basic provisions ofcommunity* - friendship/connection, food, and shelter.

Donald Trump's words on tape offer opportunity to resolve the root and harms of misogyny together, healing the repressed sensuality that underlies this speech and behavior. Misogynistic behavior is one consequence of a traumatic or conflicted original mother wound. Ignoring that original wound has long resulted in the addition and perpetuation of many other insults to the human psyche.

Woman-shaming degrades men as much as women by way of deluding the human child. The degraded woman-shaming culture is, as Jim Wallis states, a human issue.